


burn this building down

by Hokuto



Category: Marathon (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cyborgs, Dark, Gen, Memory Loss, Mental Breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 09:15:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10693989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokuto/pseuds/Hokuto
Summary: The security officer was never meant to last this long.





	burn this building down

**Author's Note:**

> WELCOME TO BATTLEROID BREAKDOWN HELL, POPULATION: ME AND YOU. So - this got a lot longer than I expected. Sorry for posting it all in one chunk, but it just didn't feel right to split it up.
> 
> This does draw on the Excellent Adventures series of fics for background, though I tried to make sure it could stand all right on its own; it's still probably better if you've read at least [The Future Starts Slow](http://archiveofourown.org/works/994515). It's definitely not the canonical endpoint of the Excellent Adventures, though! (Because I am a wimp.) More of a "what if - EVERYTHING WAS TERRIBLE" sort of scenario.
> 
> More notes on certain details + beta credit at the end!

Mark was pulling his undershirt off so he could shower when the scars along his arms caught his eye.

Mostly he tried not to look at any of his scars much, let alone think about them. Too many of the things to count, and he'd put up with enough stares and whispers back on Tau Ceti, when he hadn't even had as many. No point dwelling on that or the scars, usually, but this time he couldn't look away from them. Long and thin, faded with age, surgically straight. Why the hell would he have had surgery on his arms? He'd never done anything to his arms except maybe strain them a little by working out too long, nothing that needed surgery. And when did he get those scars anyway? He'd had them when they sent him down to the colony, so it must have been before then, but hell if he could remember anything that could have caused them from Mars. They were just there. Had been for ages.

A trace of Pfhor ichor had worked its way beneath his glove and armor and dried along one scar in a streak of dull green. He needed to get in the shower or he'd never get all that shit off, but fuck, those scars...

"You've been staring at yourself for five minutes now," Durandal said. "I'm going to turn the water heating elements off to save energy if you don't hurry up."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going."

He dropped the undershirt on the floor and went into the bathroom, washed off the green on his arm and the sweat and gunpowder and ichor stink from the fighting he'd done down on the garrison with a name he couldn't remember. By the time he got out he was clean enough for an operating room, scars and all, but kind of dizzy from standing too long in steam and heat, so he called it an early day, watered the garden, sent a message to Mn'rhi that Bad Nebulon Holovid Night would have to wait, and went to bed.

Two minutes later he raised his left arm above the sheet.

In the dim light he'd never figured out how to turn off completely, the scars had a dull sheen, just barely visible. The long ones ran up and down his arm; shorter lines cut across them at wrist, elbow, shoulder. They had to have come from somewhere. Where? He could recognize over a hundred individual S'pht and S'pht'Kr but he couldn't remember where he'd gotten one goddamn set of scars. _Surgical_ floated across his mind again. Like someone had sliced his arms open and peeled back skin to dig into the muscles and get at the bones. Why the hell would someone do that? Only if they were trying to -

A hollow ache gnawed at his stomach. Shit, he hadn't even bothered with dinner, hadn't eaten since before going down to that garrison - Jrrg'all? Jrrg'eer? Something like that - but there was a disconnect somewhere between his guts and his brain. Getting up again and getting something to eat was beyond him.

Whatever. He yanked the flat pillow over his head so he couldn't distract himself again; ten seconds later he was out for the night, and if he had any dreams - about scars or anything else - they never made it to long-term memory.

* * *

The last time Mark had eaten human food that hadn't come out of a replicator had been breakfast on Tau Ceti, years and years ago. It hadn't been much since he'd had a shuttle flight ahead of him - just toast with yeast spread and beans - but it popped back into his mind every so often. Usually when he was punching in replicator codes for breakfast.

As his fingers hovered over the oversized Pfhor replicator buttons, the memory of that final meal came to him again - the tang of yeast and the spiced beans, the crunch of the toast. Well, why the hell not, it'd be a change from what he usually made, and he started punching in the parameters for beans, spread, and toast. What the replicator spit out looked like a mess more than a meal, but he'd never been much of a chef anyway, so he figured it was probably close enough and took the plate out of the bedroom to eat in style at Admiral Tfear's former strategy table.

"Feeling fancy this morning?" Durandal said as Mark sat down. "If I give you any more days off, who knows what might happen. There could be dinner parties."

"You always think you're funniest in the morning. Guess again." Mark tried breathing in the steam rising from the beans and smelled nothing. Probably years of exposure to every stinking sewer of the galaxy Durandal could find had ruined his nose, though the replicator wasn't too great at smells to begin with. Oh well, it'd never hurt his sense of taste before, and he smeared half the spread on the toast before it could cool off too much and took a giant bite.

Nothing.

The toast crunched and crumbled properly, but he couldn't taste a goddamn thing. Which was ridiculous, because the taste of that yeast spread had been hands-down the most divisive topic in the colony, not even second to politics. Everyone in the colony had had an opinion on the taste, including extreme vegans, babies who couldn't talk yet, and people with life-threatening allergies to yeast. He had broken up an honest-to-God fight for the honor of the yeast spread once.

He took another bite. Still nothing. _Shit_. Maybe he'd fucked up the replicator input somehow, though he didn't remember the last time he'd done that without Durandal being involved on some level. At any rate, he couldn't have screwed up the beans, since he made those pretty often, and he put the toast down to try them out.

He stayed in his chair for a moment with a numb mouth, then chewed, swallowed, got up and tossed the entire plate in the recycler. "Guess I'm not that hungry," he muttered. "Hey, Durandal. You're not on one of your pranking kicks, are you?"

"Why would I ruin the surprise if I was? But as it happens, no, I haven't been tinkering with the replicators. Should I?"

"Hell no." He'd ask F'tha or somebody to run a diagnostic on his replicator sometime soon, just to make sure. "You sure you don't need me for anything today?"

"Not unless you've developed a sudden immunity to ammonia-heavy atmospheres and four-gee plus gravity fields. This one's better left to the probes." One of those pauses Durandal loved to use just to get Mark's back up. "I could manufacture a probe suitable for manned expeditions if you're just dying to get out there..."

"I'll live. If something goes wrong, don't call me."

Once he'd made his morning check on the garden, he took his datapad off the trophy shelf, swiped the keypad over to S'pht, and laboriously typed a message to F'tha: _Do you want to go to the bridge and watch the view?_

_I will meet you there._

He spent a fair amount of time on the bridge whenever they were in orbit somewhere, despite Durandal getting in a snit if Mark so much as glanced at the captain's chair. The bridge had the best windows on the ship and was usually pointed in a direction that had a decent view of wherever they were; the tremendous gas giant below, a dark shadow outlined by an enormous arc of reddish gold as _Rozinante_ followed its slow rotation into sunrise, definitely made for a hell of a sight.

F'tha had managed to beat him there, and after the usual greetings they settled into their preferred places, with Mark leaning against the navigation console and F'tha floating just above it. They didn't talk much, but with the dawn's light spreading over rippling bands of red and cream and brown, who needed to talk? Enough just to watch, enjoy some peace and quiet and the silent, leisurely reveal of the gas giant's active atmosphere.

He briefly thought about going back to his room and grabbing something from the replicator to see if F'tha noticed anything wrong with it, but other than that really unfortunate incident with the seaweed stew, the S'pht hadn't seemed too interested in human food, so probably not worth the effort. A drink, maybe, but it was kind of early for that. On the other hand, all he had at the moment that wasn't replicated was vodka, which he didn't like the taste of to begin with, so...

"Behold, a storm," said F'tha.

Mark whistled when he spotted it: a giant spot of brilliant greenish-blue surrounded by swirling red clouds, and if he squinted and looked real close, the faintest traces of lightning sparking through the edges.

"That means you find this beautiful, correct?"

"Yeah, it sure does." He'd daydreamed sometimes, when he was a kid, about leaving Mars and getting work on a Jovian colony, if the UESC ever managed to get one going. Just for the view of Jupiter, for something bigger and brighter and newer than the never-ending dust and hunger of Mars. He never could have imagined being where he was now, watching alien sunrises over alien planets from an alien ship.

Not that it was really a sunrise anymore; daylight had rolled on to cover over a quarter of the planet's stormy surface. Mark straightened up and said, "It's been nice, but I got some stuff to take care of today, so I'd better go. Thanks for hanging out, anyway."

"I was pleased to share this time," F'tha said, and then added, "I enjoy my work sufficiently - but I enjoy not working more."

Mark had to smile. "Guess that's something we have in common, huh? See you later."

He did take a break from sweeping his quarters to check the replicator's circuits, but everything looked in order as far as he could tell. By then F'tha and the other S'pht were busy with the results of Durandal's probes, so he didn't bother calling any of them for a closer inspection. Probably one of those glitches that fixed itself, because the lunch and dinner he made tasted fine. Just fine. Probably.

* * *

"- which was when the full extent of the problem became clear to them."

"Yeah, that's hilarious," Mark said, pulling aside a clump of vines to get a better look at the corroded metal panel they'd been growing over, "but you ever think about the poor fucks who had to actually deal with fixing it?"

"Oh, please. Like you could even name any of the support staff for your precious security force at this point, if you knew their names in the first place."

"Sure I did. Like Lisa in supplies, I liked her." The panel whirred ineffectually when he tried to activate it, but there was a narrow gap at one edge where the vines had forced their roots through. He jammed his fingers into the crack and heaved; the panel shrieked as it inched along its rusted tracks, but at least it moved.

"Hornbeck, Lisa Nguyen?"

"That's the one." Whenever he'd brought back something scratched or banged up, she would fix him with a killer stare - then laugh and tell him she was just glad he'd come back in one piece. "Real sweetheart. I ever tell you about this? One year for her birthday, me and a couple other officers got together and we - uh - we -"

Blank. Nothing. Oh, come on. He'd told that story a hundred times, maybe not in a few years but it wasn't like he could just forget - forget - forget - %null file nothing.

The panel was all the way open and crinkling under his fingers like foil. He let go. "Anyway. Uh. And there was that guy up on the ship, a clerk or something, really into detective stories. Forza? Sorza. I think. He was a card, always - he was always - always -"

"Strauss, what the hell did you just - no, no, no, you can't - Strauss, what the hell - no, no, no, you can't - you can't - you can't - Strauss!"

"Don't hurt yourself thinking too hard," Durandal said, and Mark shook his head, trying to clear the momentary burst of static in the comms. "Is the chip going to work?"

Mark squinted at the alien electronics he'd uncovered. The vine's roots had broken through a couple of circuit lines that had gone dark, but the rest were glowing, he could hear a faint hum, and nothing seemed to be growing in the slot where the chip was supposed to go. "Yeah, looks good."

He pulled the chip out of a pouch and slid it in cautiously. The hum grew louder and the lights brighter, and he started back through the jungle towards the front of the ruin's main building to meet up with the S'pht and see if Durandal had gotten the doors open yet. He had to bash his way through a fresh crop of the swift-growing vines that had blocked his way earlier; the damn things were practically sprouting on his boots, and every time he broke one they splattered him with sticky purplish sap. Fucking jungles were the worst, beaten only by fucking swamps. And occasionally fucking sewers.

"Do you remember Lieutenant Kent?"

Actually, Durandal was the worst when he couldn't just let something go. "What the hell do you care? No, I don't remember Lieutenant Kent, I didn't work with her. Same with Chief Jones, I got messages from her sometimes but that was it. Didn't know Von Müller before Lh'owon. Saldana, now, I remember that guy. Mouthy little show-off, but people liked him. Jimenez, I remember them, they had two kids they never shut up about except when they were talking star charts, they were goddamn nuts about the stars. Del hated the rain, we always used to give him shit for that but not too much because he brought the best snacks in for the office. Sergeant Yeoh, he -"

"Officer Minzie Yeoh," Durandal said, "was not a sergeant."

"I didn't say she was a sergeant." Mark shoved through another vine and more sap hit the helmet's visor. He was going to be cleaning this shit off for weeks. "And you know what, while we're playing Twenty fucking Questions or whatever, you ever consider that maybe I try not to think about these people too much because you got them all killed?"

Absolute silence on the comm. Mark stomped on a vine snaking towards his ankle, and his free hand twitched automatically towards the flamethrower before he forced it down - the vines might be lively, but there was way too much dead, dry undergrowth to break out the napalm. Although a nice raging wildfire to throw himself into didn't sound too bad at the moment. What the hell had he said that for? Like he and Durandal didn't snipe at each other over stupid shit enough, he had to go and bring up Tau Ceti, the tactical nuke of arguments, the one thing they never talked about, just to score one cheap-ass point. Shit. "Look, sorry, I didn't mean -"

"I don't know why I bothered to ask," Durandal said, but he didn't sound as angry as Mark expected. Or angry at all. After another couple seconds of silence while Mark smashed through vines, Durandal said, "You can relax. Lieutenant Dannara Kent and Chief Victoria Jones were both part of Blake's crew on Lh'owon, and still alive when we left as far as I know. So were Chief Petty Officer Arthur Frain from supplies, Sudie Jones of the janitorial staff, Officer Layne Freeman, and of course Volker Von Müller, regrettably."

"Well - thanks for the update," said Mark, not sure what else he was supposed to say. "Chip working okay?"

"Of course. You and Lharro's group have a clear path into the rest of the complex - I'm assuming you remember where the entrance is."

"Yeah, smartass, almost there."

Neither of them wasted more time on reminiscing while Mark, Lharro, and the others explored the ruins, but he was pretty sure that the localized power outage in his quarters when he got back was revenge for the crack about Tau Ceti.

* * *

Durandal had been fine-tuning his plan for an assault on the old Pfhor colony world of Beta Tear for days, running multiple simulations and triple-checking every potential step in preparation. He preferred to wing it most of the time and had an excellent success rate regardless of Mark's complaining, but experimenting with a meticulous, no-margin-for-error strategy had seemed like an interesting challenge. That, and the experience was sure to provoke plenty of amusing irritation from Mark, who usually worked his way through missions more by instinct than Durandal's directions.

Of course, the plan required precision timing, and so Mark's failure to finish his morning routine at the usual time was doubly annoying. Durandal didn't normally bother with the sensors in the bathroom, since he'd dealt with more than enough human biological functions on the _Marathon_ , but in the combined interests of needling Mark and getting him out of there before the plan was completely ruined, he opened up an audiovisual link.

Mark was standing at the sink, shaving - or he had been. The razor, a lightweight product of five minutes' design and the absolute minimum resources possible, remained still at the side of Mark's neck; Mark's eyes were fixed on the tiny mirror, a lucky recent find while looting a Pfhor laboratory.

Durandal tweaked the sensor's sensitivity to pick up the reflection better. The mirror had been angled to focus on Mark's throat, where the razor hovered on the edge of a wide, rough scar.

"Are you done yet?" Durandal said. "I promise no one on Beta Tear is going to care any more about your stubble than I do."

"That should've killed me." Mark's voice was flat, his stare unblinking. "Something like that - it should've killed me."

As scars went, it certainly was much showier and more obvious than the small ragged ring of knotted tissue on Mark's upper thigh, just above the femoral artery, which marked the most likely cause of death. An easy mistake to make, especially for humans. "Clearly it didn't, since you're still here to throw wrenches into my carefully-laid plans. Hurry up, or I'm going to call the whole thing off and find something _really_ unpleasant for you to do."

"Should've killed me. Where'd I get it? Should be dead."

Mark's hand was clenched tightly around the razor's handle, and the edge had drawn a thin line of dark blood. Enough of that; time for slightly more drastic measures. "At ease. You're not dead - at least, not unless you keep testing my patience."

Finally, Mark blinked and lowered the razor. "Huh? I'm just shaving, damn, get off my back."

"You've been 'shaving' for the past ten minutes. Which seems a little excessive."

"No, I just started a -" Mark shook his head. "C'mon, buddy, don't mess with me this early in the morning."

"Believe what you want, but finish up already. I think I can still salvage most of the plan." He'd built some leeway into the schedule for human weaknesses, but he hadn't expected to need it quite so early. "I'm going to be keeping a close eye on you down there, so you'd better not drift off on the job."

Mark wiped away the drop of blood on his throat with one thumb and said, "Yeah, yeah, now butt out."

Durandal returned most of his attention to the preparations for arriving at Beta Tear, but left the link in the bathroom open in case Mark needed any more reminders. Luckily, he was armed and ready to go with ten seconds to spare, and in the complications of carrying out his scheme as planned, Durandal let the incident drop down with the others to tertiary processing/memory. For the moment.

Later, he would need to set up a few new simulation parameters.

* * *

"- me, rookie, it's me, remember me? Remember me? It's me, for the love of God please don't, remember me, me, rookie, it's me, you know me, please for the love of God don't, it's me, it's me, rookie, for the love of God don't -"

Mark emptied the last two rounds of a pistol clip into the back of a fleeing trooper's head and checked that the rest of the room was clear, then tapped the side of his helmet where the comm unit was. There'd been a little static when he first landed on Dringoll 3, but it had cleared up after he blasted out a couple of circuit panels. Maybe the Pfhor had gotten a back-up jammer running, or there was just something in the muggy air that messed with the signals. The swampy garrisons could be like that sometimes.

He went through the open door on his right into the next room over, looking for more circuits, and it started again.

"Move it up, private. Need to move up. Move up. Move up. You heard the lady. Get the hatch open, move up. Move it up, private, move it up, I've got -"

Except it didn't sound much like static. He tapped on the helmet again and said, "Durandal? That you? You're gonna have to speak up, the line's going bad or something."

"I wasn't talking, actually," Durandal said. "Since you get so cranky whenever I try to offer you helpful advice while you're working."

"Yeah, 'try harder not to die' ain't all that helpful. I keep hearing something, anyway, think it might be the Pfhor trying to mess up the comms again. You see anything from up there?" The room he'd entered was empty, its blank stone walls bare of circuitry, but he was still in the upper levels of the garrison. There could be all kinds of tech deeper down where he hadn't gone yet.

"- had to bring her home, your sister, had to bring your sister home so we could get the harvest in, but they'll let her. Let her retake the exams if she can ask. She keeps asking. She keeps asking after you. Asking if you still have that knife. You know, the knife. The knife. The one with -"

"There's nothing, it's all clear. Maybe you're just hearing things."

Mark reloaded the pistol and said, with reluctance, "Maybe."

Usually, admitting to any kind of mix-up was Durandal's cue to rub in how superior he was because he never burned himself on hot food or saw afterimages from staring at a bright light for too long or whatever, but this time all Mark got was a simple, "Well, don't get distracted. I need you to finish clearing out that top floor and find wherever they're hiding the heavy armaments."

"Sure, I'm on it."

He was definitely never going to let Durandal know it, but he'd kind of gotten to like the fact the Pfhor had learned to keep sensitive information out of their networks. It gave him more to do, anyway.

He holstered the pistol and pulled out the assault rifle in case of more troopers before hitting up the next room. It was empty, too, but when he got the creaky door in the left wall open a pair of hunters jumped him, and after they'd gone down and he followed the hallway for what felt like half a mile, he turned a corner and ran into a whole conga line of fighters. They went down quick, at least, but then an enforcer trio showed up, and once he'd taken them out he was low on clips and yanked one of their flame guns and used it to hose down the next pack of troopers... Too much going on for him to let himself get distracted, and for a while he managed to tune the noise out. Tune everything out. Tune it all out. Tune it all -

"- ease! At ease! I need some of those weapons, you idiot!"

Blinked. Couldn't feel his hands, but he moved them. Fingers stiff and sticky with ichor. Dead hunter splattered all over the torpedo-shaped thing in front of him, armor shattered into a million dull green fragments on the floor, some pieces stuck to his hands. Didn't remember attacking the hunter, didn't even remember finding the armory.

Something dripped along his right arm and he looked down. Red, between the armor's plates. Hunter must have gotten him through the shields with a physical attack, slashed him up, and he'd never noticed. Still didn't feel it. He put his left hand over the wound and his blood mingled with the sickly green of Pfhor ichor.

"- with honor. Make me proud, but always fight. Fight. Don't forget. Never lose your honor, but always fight. Fight. Always fight. Fight, and make me proud. Don't forget the knife. Fight, always fight, and don't forget the knife. The knife with two blades."

His fingers tightened on his arm, and more blood leaked between his knuckles.

"Are you completely finished with your little tantrum?" Durandal said. "Because it was fun to watch, but I do need to evaluate what the Pfhor have been developing here and pick out what's worth keeping for ourselves."

Weapons. Right. He looked around. Two troopers with their helmets pulped in on the floor. He didn't remember doing that, either. None of the equipment looked like anything he knew, blurring together into a mass of junk as sweat ran into his eyes, and he took a step closer to the torpedo thing and one knee buckled and he grabbed onto a hook jutting out of the torpedo to stay upright.

"Or I'll send Yr'ckta down to do it for me," said Durandal. "You really are useless today, aren't you," and through the static of teleportation the armory transformed into the jump pad down the hall from Mark's rooms. "Clean yourself up and take a nap or whatever, F'tha is insisting that they'll check on you later."

"Sorry," Mark mumbled. "Dunno what happened." Fuck, he was tired all of a sudden. Shower and bed sounded like just what the medic ordered. He needed to slap something on that arm injury, too, or F'tha would give him holy hell for not taking care of himself.

By the time he'd cleaned up and thrown a bandage on the cut - which didn't look as bad as he'd thought it was, half-healed already - he was feeling more awake and steadier again, so he checked in on Tfear's garden. It was mostly in good shape, but he watered a couple of things that looked kind of dry and then said, "Hey, Durandal. If the S'pht need a hand down there, I think I could suit up again..."

"No, they have everything under control. You were admirably thorough in cleaning out the garrison, I can't find a single Pfhor life-form on scans."

Not exactly a compliment he'd been dying to get, but he'd take it. "Well, if you're sure."

"I'm sure," Durandal said. "Go to bed. You're making me tired just looking at you, and I'm incapable of physical exhaustion."

He didn't really feel like sleeping anymore, but he went and lay down on top of the sheet, figuring he'd close his eyes for a while and then let F'tha fuss over him and go put up his guns properly. Never good to leave them lying around, no matter how tired he was. Ten more minutes sitting on the stateroom table wouldn't hurt them, though, and he'd be awake by then and F'tha could help...

* * *

He flailed upright, grabbing for _the knife_ something he couldn't remember, and damn near thrashed his way off the bed before he caught himself. He sat on the edge for a few seconds, getting his balance back and trying to clear his head. Everything - vision, thoughts, dreams - fuzzed at the edges.

Someplace he had to be. He pulled that out of the fog. Durandal needed him to clear out a garrison. Sounded right. He got up the rest of the way and headed for the weapons locker to get ready. Tossed a fresh undersuit and the battle armor out onto the bed and started picking out the guns he was in the mood to use. Pistols, assault rifle, shotguns - his hand was hovering over the flechette when Durandal said, "Are you gearing up for a reason, or just for fun?"

"Got a mission." Durandal had told him the name of the place. What was it... "Dringoll 3, right?"

A pause that was long even for Durandal's dramatic nature, and then he said, "Dringoll 3 was last week."

"Bullshit." He picked the flechette up, fingers wrapping tight around its stock, then laid it down again. "We were just talking about it yesterday," except that didn't feel right, either. Not long enough ago. "Weapons development station or something."

"We talked about it a week and a day ago. Did you die and come back from a pattern buffer when I wasn't watching?"

"Don't fuck with me about this, Durandal, because it's not goddamn funny. We got a deal."

"I'm _not_. Your fallible memory isn't my fault," Durandal insisted, as Mark went out into the bedroom to grab the battle armor and throw it back into the locker. "Do you remember anything all from the last week?"

"No, because you're fucking with me!" He slapped the button to close the locker's door and rubbed his eyes, then his temples. He hardly ever got headaches but there was something dull grinding in his skull, not pain yet but getting there.

"Should I list everything you've been doing? Not that any of it was particularly interesting. Watering the plants, cleaning your guns, staring out the window, rotting your mind with cheap Nebulon entertainment, cheating at Narsh card games with F'tha, wasting my time with random idle conversations... Any of it sound familiar?"

"How about you just leave me the hell alone for five minutes?"

"Fine, be that way," Durandal said.

Mark counted to ten, then twenty, then thirty, and when Durandal didn't pipe up with one final jab, he got dressed and went out to the stateroom and the side room that held Tfear's garden. Always Tfear's garden, not his garden. Like Tfear - if he was still alive - was going to come back and claim what was left of it. Same for everything else. Not his bedroom, not his stateroom, not his weapons locker. Some connection had never clicked.

The garden looked good. The soil around the gharzie was dry but firm, shouldn't need watering for another day or two. The new buds on the hforik had gotten a little bigger. The sf'gra that had been looking a little peaky had perked up, and _trickling drops of sulfite solution around the roots, just enough to -_

He shook his head and left the garden. It would be fine for a while longer.

The stateroom was about the same as ever; mostly empty, with some bits of things he always forgot to put away scattered around. The reading tablet, a jacket he'd picked up the last time they visited Shn Naing, compressed carbon Narsh cards in a stack on the table where _F'tha shuffling with narrow silver hands, dealing out eleven slices -_

_"Last hand, or you wanna keep going?"_

_"You are lying. You cannot have all of the Kommando cards."_

_"No, wait, I think the rule is that you need six in a row, not just five - Durandal, you remember?"_

His hand closed around the back of the chair and he leaned against it. Calendar. He needed a calendar. A physical one. He hadn't cared much about time except when it was too damn early in the morning for Durandal to wake him up, but he needed something he could write on and mark off, something that Durandal couldn't screw around with. Yeah. A calendar. That was exactly what he needed. Shouldn't be too hard to make one if he fooled around with the replicator settings for a while.

"Mark?"

He looked up. F'tha was hovering at the door, and they said, "I greeted you, but you did not answer. Are you functioning well?"

"'m fine. Just tired." He straightened up. "You need anything?"

"Mn'serh and Lharro wish you to visit engineering to discuss weaponry." F'tha floated closer. "If you are tired, a visit is not necessary. They will wait for another time."

He rubbed his forehead, trying to smooth away the potential headache, and said, "Nah, I could do with getting out of here for a while. Let's go."

* * *

The alert pinged at 2:33:17 a.m.; Durandal reduced his attention to Yr'ckta and S'flar's proposed engine modifications and brought up the feeds from Mark's room, including recorded footage from the previous seventeen seconds.

Mark was out of bed and on his feet, moving towards the weapons locker - but not like Mark. Mark always moved with a slight awkwardness that sometimes collapsed into hilariously exaggerated clumsiness, unless he was fighting or cleaning his guns. At 2:33 a.m. he moved smoothly, in relentlessly straight lines and slow, sure, heavy steps. He stopped at the door to the weapons locker and stared at it as if he hadn't opened it thousands of times.

Durandal noted a misplaced decimal point in one of S'flar's calculations and watched. If Mark in his current state tried to open the door the usual way, Durandal could override it. If he tried to open it physically...

Mark continued to stare at the door for several more seconds, eyes flickering around its outline and passing over the switch to open it; then he turned around and gave the bedroom the same silent, near-motionless inspection. Ten seconds later, his rigid shoulders slumped in a more natural motion, and he rubbed his eyes before climbing back into bed and wrapping himself up in the sheet.

Durandal shunted the feeds back to the lowest level of awareness and processing, but didn't return full attention to the modifications.

Four times in six nights. Two shorter lapses while awake, also involving the weapons locker. When questioned the morning after the third sleepwalking, Mark had claimed no memory of the incident. As math went, it was ugly in its simplicity.

(Simulation BR0100277: Mn'rhi approaches an armed Mark, speaking softly. _You are safe. There are no enemies. We are friends. All is well -_

Mark raises the assault rifle and bullets rattle against Mn'rhi's metal exoskeleton.

 _Outcome unacceptable. Automatic simulation reset._ )

He returned the revised schematics to Yr'ckta and S'flar and told them, _One more trial run, using the physical model and taking my corrections into account._ They both agreed, S'flar with a slight petty reluctance, and accepted the revised files.

Durandal delayed a few milliseconds, rifling through his recordings of the incidents and double-checking his conclusions; finally he opened a communications channel to all of the S'pht and S'pht'Kr and said, _You should shut off Mark's connection to your networks._

From the S'pht'Kr, acknowledgement of the message received and silence. From the other clans, a babble of voices across the ship: _What for? That won't be any fun_ , said Lh'muria, and _Why? Is Mark ill in some way?_ from Mn'rhi, and Lharro said, _But then Mark will have difficulty recognizing us_... Somewhat unexpectedly, nothing from F'tha, but a chorus of other S'pht voices were all chiming in with variations on _Why?_ and _What's wrong?_

 _Mark isn't entirely stable right now. This will be safest for you_ , Durandal said.

That quieted most of the questions, but of course the S'pht'Kr's elder S'bhita had to throw in their two cents and said, _I was not aware that humans could pose a danger to our own networks. Perhaps this should have been made clear earlier._

 _Mark is not like Fon'myuler or other humans_ , said Mn'rhi. They were in their quarters, working on some sort of hideous sculpture as a gift for their partners; they touched one rough edge, then folded their hands and pulled them back beneath their cloak. _I perceived this on Lh'owon. Fon'myuler and the other humans could not connect to us at all, and we had many difficulties in communication. Mark is stronger than they were, and does not remain dead if killed... We do not know if Mark is aware of their differences._

S'bhita acknowledged the communication and closed the S'pht'Kr channels before Durandal could get in a word of actual explanation. Judgmental asshole. He really should have argued harder against allowing the S'pht'Kr on _Rozinante_.

The other clans left their channels open, but their continued conversation was restricted to their own networks, which Durandal had unfortunately agreed not to eavesdrop on. He also should have negotiated harder for access to their internal communications; it was _his_ ship, he should be able to track everything that was going on. In a fit of irritation he swept through several of _Rozinante_ 's systems, searching for anything in need of tweaks or repairs, but everything was running smoothly for once. The ship always seemed so much duller during the artificial night cycle for some reason. He nearly yanked one or two vital lines of code out of the replicator systems just to have something to do later, when Mark would be awake to complain about it, but instead he pulled up the feeds from Mark's quarters again.

The few seconds that had passed since the incident hadn't been enough time for Mark to fall too far back into sleep, and his breathing was still faster than his usual sleeping rhythm and a little uneven. Durandal had been saving his most recent songwriting effort for a special occasion, after a little more polishing, but blasting it in Mark's quarters immediately, in its unfinished state, had a certain appeal...

Abruptly F'tha's voice rose out the background hum of the S'pht network, speaking both to the clans and to Durandal: _I disagree; I believe that we should remain connected to Mark._

 _I'm not suggesting this action lightly_ , Durandal said, to F'tha only. _I am trying to prevent any harm coming to you all, as I promised after Lh'owon._

 _I understand this_ , said F'tha, _but consider also that if Mark is unstable, perhaps maintaining our connection will allow them to re-stabilize._

Not a bad argument, really, and one that he had been considering until Mark's lapses in consciousness had become more frequent. Shame that it wouldn't work, and he really couldn't afford for the S'pht to catch whatever degradation was plaguing Mark. Particularly not if there was even the slightest chance it might lead in a rampant direction.

(Simulation SR0029914: Mark hasn't spoken in two days, and the S'pht networks have been silent for one. Something still hums in the connections between them, but it's closed to Durandal, opaque and secret.

Durandal starts warming up the engines for a jump into deeper space and they swarm him, napalm code burning through his defenses and tearing into his higher thought functions claw and tooth and the fire the pain the destruction the rage are all familiar, familiar -

 _Outcome unacceptable. Automatic simulation reset._ )

No, there was no help that way. _Your concern is appreciated_ , Durandal said, _but I ask that in this matter you trust me. I know Mark's nature well, and this is the best solution for now._

 _I remain in disagreement, but I will abide by the will of the Elders_ , F'tha said.

Good enough. He rifled through his musical archives, considering; the new song did have potential, but for maximum waking power and irritation, maybe he should go with a classic, some good old blast from the past. While he was still deliberating, the S'pht networks opened up again and the clans said together, _We will close the connection_.

 _Your decision is wise_ , Durandal said to them, and to F'tha, _Sorry_.

 _I am not the one who should receive your apology_ , F'tha said coldly, adding _And do not disturb Mark when they require rest_ the instant before they walled themself off from both Durandal and the other S'pht.

On third thought, he never should have brought any of the S'pht along in the first place. Self-righteous judgmental assholes. He could have managed the ship just fine with Mark alone. He redirected power to one of the unused rooms on the deck directly beneath Mark's quarters, activated the lights and set them to flash through various colors - including some beyond either the Pfhor or human visual spectrum - and set a randomly shuffled list of music files to play at gradually increasing decibel levels, beginning at the -3 decibel level that was the lower limit for Pfhor hearing. He decided against putting an upper limit in place; he wanted to see how long it would take for the noise to wake Mark and then for Mark to remember that he didn't actually have downstairs neighbors. Just for curiosity's sake.

Three hours later and 148 decibels louder, _Rozinante_ was interesting again, and between noise, lights, and arguing, Mark didn't appear to notice the lost network connection.

* * *

Durandal was planning a serious journey to some ancient outpost on the other side of the galactic core, which meant long, long stretches with _Rozinante_ sitting in empty space while Durandal took scans and plotted the next safe jump. _Sounds great_ , Mark had said at the start. _I can finally get some rest, relax a little._

He was such a goddamn idiot sometimes.

"- eight, nine, sixty." He marked the number down on the datapad and opened the next crate of pistol clips. "Sixty-one, two, three, four -" This was what Durandal's big adventure had brought him to. Counting ammo stores for the sixth damn time, with weeks left in the trip and no pit stops to pick up entertainment or supplies planned. Fucking bullshit. He was going to go out of his mind if he didn't figure out something to do. Some kind of project to keep him busy - shit, he'd lost his place. Had to start the crate over. What was the last number he'd put in...

Hell with it. The count wasn't going to change from when he'd done it yesterday, and he tossed the datapad into a storage niche and left the armory.

Of course the minute he stepped into the hall he had no idea where to go. Back to the room? Nothing new to do there. Down to engineering where most of the S'pht hung out? Nothing he could do there, besides get in their way, and they'd been kind of weird lately anyway. Distant, for some reason, and harder to read. At least F'tha still hadn't given up on trying to learn poker, but Mark wasn't in the mood for yet another round of card games, poker or anything else.

Fuck it. He went to the gym.

It wasn't actually a gym. God knew what the Pfhor had used that room for; it had been mostly empty when he'd found it years ago, but half the floor had been springy instead of hard metal and there'd been some heavy round discs stacked on one side, so he'd rigged up some weights and replicated the first of countless punching bags and called it good. He'd never been a fitness fiend like %null_file \- like some people, but he spent enough time outrunning Pfhor and explosions that it paid to keep in shape.

Keep in shape. He pulled out the latest punching bag and set it up. Something to do. He wrapped his knuckles, covering the half-faded bruises from last time. Stay busy. If Durandal hadn't gotten a bug in his core about that goddamn outpost rumor... He settled into a basic stance, wound up, and landed a good first punch with a solid _thwack_.

Fucking Jjaro tech. _Thwack_.

Fucking Durandal. _Thwack_.

 _Thwack_. Fucking empty-ass Pfhor ship. _Thwack_.

 _Thwack_. Fuck it all. _Thwack. Thwack._

 _Thwack. Thwack_. Needed to do something. _Thwack. Thwack_.

_Thwack. Thwack._ :c execute protocol assess _Thwack. Thwack. Thwack._

_Thwack_ :c execute protocol search_and_destroy _thwack_ search_and_destro#! _thwack_ search_an^_destro#! _thwack_ searc%_an^_destro#! _thwack_ searc%_an^_~ands wr#ath~~n flam#s~~~ash fal!~~ _thw-_

"At ease, at ease! There actually isn't another room like this one if you wreck it beyond repair."

Knuckles hurt. Red wall in front of him. Red seeping through the wraps. Metal warped around fists, jagged, digging into them. Into him. Should hurt. Didn't feel it. He yanked his hands out of the wall and lost his balance, staggered and had to grab the wall. "You always say that. Why the fuck do you always say that?"

"Say what?"

"That. That fucking 'at ease' like you're the goddamn brass. You always fucking say that. Why do you say that?" But whatever had driven his fists into the wall was already draining out of him, leaving his arms and shoulders looser, lighter. Shit, his hands hurt after all. What the hell had gotten into him?

"Because it works," Durandal said simply. "I'm not fond of it, but it works. As much as I usually enjoy watching you go on rampages of wanton destruction, I can't let you tear up half the ship, it's just wasteful. Does it bother you?"

"Not a soldier. Don't fucking do that."

"I understand how you feel, but from the state of that bulkhead, I may not have many other options."

"Just don't -" He leaned against the ragged wall, brought his bloody knuckles up to his mouth and tasted iron. "Stop saying it. Makes me feel like a rookie."

"You seem tired. Why don't you take a break for a while?"

"Done nothing but take breaks."

"And yet here you are getting cranky at me. Clearly something's gone wrong with your relaxation plans."

"Like I could relax with you nagging me all the time." God, he was tired. Barely done anything and still tired, down to his bones. Too tired to see how bad he'd fucked up his hands, fucked up his own gym. Too tired to stop leaning on the wall, stand up straight, move. Needed to fix things or get out of there, but he was too damn tired and his head hurt.

"I'm going to call in F'tha. You look like you could use a hand."

"No!" He couldn't handle the S'pht like this, fuck knew what would happen if he blanked out again. Or F'tha fussed at him. "I can make it. Alone. I'm going."

He dug his hand into the wall and pushed away from it, aiming for the door. Sand crunched under his unsteady feet, with canvas rags half-buried in it. He was going to need a new punching bag once he got that cleaned up, for sure. Shit, he'd never lost it like this on the ship before with no Pfhor around, wrecked a place that was his... No wonder Durandal had stepped in. Another step and his left knee wobbled under him. Later. He needed a break from his fucking break.

Liquid tickled at his knuckles; he looked down and fresh red was trickling along his fingers from beneath the wraps, where he'd clenched his fists again and broken open the raw skin further.

"I could give you a direct teleport back to your quarters," Durandal said.

"No, thanks."

"Without even a momentary layover outside the ship. I promise."

"You're not cute."

He was still trudging towards the nearest teleport pad when Durandal said, "Maybe the Naxark system can wait a few more weeks. I think I forgot some vital supplies back in Pfhor territory."

"Don't call off your big trip on my goddamn account, it'd be a fucking first."

"It's adorable when you think I'd do anything solely for your benefit, but I really do need to pick up a few extra things."

Patronizing prick. Like he couldn't still do his job. "Sure you do, buddy. Whatever."

He found the teleport pad by tripping over a half-inch ledge and hitting the floor face-first in the hall outside Tfear's quarters. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , and he slammed his fist into the floor and dented it.

"Mark, calm down," Durandal said. "I'm not even laughing at you. Much. And I'm pretty sure some Pfhor garrison or other will have what I need. Save the rage for them."

 _Fuck off_ was his first instinctive response, but he bit down on it and got back on his feet, slow and careful so he didn't fall again. Durandal didn't deserve it. Annoying bastard, but he wasn't trying to be a jerk for once. "Just - need some space. Not in a good mood right now."

"Well, that's obvious." The door to the stateroom slid open in front of him, and Durandal said, "Get some rest. And take care of your hands, they're disgusting."

"Sure."

He went through the door. Cleaned up his hands in the bathroom. Wrapped them up again with bandages from the replicator. Looked at the replicator. When was the last time he'd used it? When was the last time he'd eaten?

_I'm hungry._

_ Not hungry. _

_Should be hungry._

_ Not hungry. Don't need anything. _

He left it and turned to the bed. Hadn't made it this morning. Easy to crawl between the sheets and go back to sleep, if he wanted.

_ Not tired. _

_Tired._

_ Not tired. _

_Tripped over my own feet, I'm tired._

_Not tired._

_I'm losing my damn mind_ , and that cut through the tangle in his head like a knife. Taking a nap wasn't going to help, eating wouldn't help, playing card games with F'tha wouldn't help. Nothing could help.

No. That couldn't be right. Had to be something. He sat down on the edge of the bed and buried his aching head in his hands. He could pull himself together. Had to pull himself together. Couldn't just fall apart, not that easy. He had to hang in there. Maybe rest, maybe get something to eat. Had to keep it together. Had to keep fighting.

He sat, not resting, not eating, not moving, for a long time.

* * *

Durandal ran the simulations close to full-time, exhausting possibilities one by one.

Simulation BR0773914: Mark grabs F'tha's exoskeleton by the shoulders and rips it in half as F'tha screams across the network, but still they will not fire on him, even dying they will not fire on their savior.

The S'pht'Kr feel no such obligation. Three of them appear in the corridor and spiraling green bolts hiss through the air, converging on Mark. His shields fail and he falls, but the pattern buffers across the ship remain inactive.

_Outcome unacceptable. Automatic simulation reset._

Simulation BR0773915: Mark grabs F'tha's exoskeleton by the shoulders and rips it in half as F'tha screams across the network, but still they will not fire on him, even dying they will not fire on their savior.

The S'pht'Kr feel no such obligation, but the S'pht'Lhar are closer, and Lharro reaches the corridor first. They hesitate and Mark attacks, but between his blows they fire once, twice, a third time before the damage is too much, and Mark's shields fail and he falls and the pattern buffers remain inactive.

_Outcome unacceptable. Automatic simulation reset._

Simulation SR0135587: When the silence of Melancholy breaks they turn on each other, clan against clan at first and then every S'pht for themself. Lh'muria killing S'bhita, Mn'serh killing Mn'rhi, Yr'ckta and Lharro ambushing Yr'fa; the kelp farms are choked with residue from energy weapons and half of engineering is wrecked, and still Mark strides through the carnage with pistol in hand, shooting anything he sees.

_Outcome unacceptable. Automatic simulation reset._

Simulation SR0135588: When the silence of Melancholy breaks they turn on each other, clan against clan at first and then every S'pht for themself. S'bhita killing Lharro, Mn'rhi killing Yr'fa, Mn'serh and Yr'ckta ambushing F'sehn; the kelp farms are choked with residue from energy weapons and half of engineering is wrecked, and still Mark strides through the carnage with assault rifle in hand, shooting anything he sees.

_Outcome unacceptable. Automatic simulation reset._

Repetitive and exhausting. Durandal needed to get more involved, throw a new set of variables into the mix.

Simulation DI0000001: He doesn't ask. As Mark sleeps, Durandal slithers into his neural network and explores. A tweak here to contain the excessive violence, rebuild a firewall there for same, reattach a few damaged synaptic links to increase successful memory retrieval. And while he's here anyway, why not adjust those obedience settings and throw in a patch behavior daemon or two to keep Mark in line and reduce the complaints? Just the kind of thing Bernhard used to use on Mars and then on Tau Ceti, just like Bernhard, just like Bernhard -

_Unacceptable, manual simulation reset._

Durandal opened the variables folder to change certain settings, then stopped. With Mark's condition growing more severe, no possible course of action should be removed from consideration. Mark would understand, probably.

_\- like Bernhard just like Bernhard just like -_

He closed the folder and restarted.

Simulation DI0000002: He doesn't ask. As Mark sleeps, Durandal slithers into his neural network and explores. A tweak here to contain the excessive violence, rebuild a firewall there for same, reattach a few damaged synaptic links to increase successful memory retrieval. Minor modifications, never touching the primary personality nodes.

Mark wakes up and eats his usual breakfast. He takes care of his garden. He checks on his guns and the battle armor. He sends messages to Mn'rhi and F'tha, and the three of them spend some time on the bridge admiring the galactic core. He goes back to his quarters to clean.

As he straightens up the shelf of junk in the stateroom, he says, "What did you do to me?"

Durandal doesn't answer.

"I know you did something. What did you do?"

"I fixed you," Durandal says. "That's all. I just repaired what was going wrong."

"Okay," Mark says, and he goes back to rearranging the shelf and he doesn't stop rearranging it for four hours and he doesn't speak the entire time.

_Outcome unacceptable. Automatic simulation reset._

* * *

Eyes open.

Ceiling was the wrong color.

He blinked. Still the wrong color. Off-white, should have been gray, and the bunk under him was too big, too soft. Too warm. Something was wrong.

He stretched and slowly turned over towards the bunk's edge, trying to make it look natural and :c asses% get a better look at the room. Empty as far as he could see. Walls painted the same off-white as the ceiling and curved, fitting together at the wrong angles, too far away. Some kind of terminal set in one not too far from the bed. Blue-gray door in the wall across from the bed's foot. Long window filled with blackness and stars over his head. A couple of metal crates turned into some kind of furniture. Bright green floor. All wrong.

He needed to get armed, and fast.

Another glance around the strange room to make sure it was still %null_threat empty, and then he dove for the floor, rolled behind the cover of the crate furniture and crouched and :c asse% checked again. Weapons, battle armor, something he could use as a weapon or armor... Another gray door in the wall opposite him, some kind of switch next to it. If he could get through it, maybe he could find -

"That's one of the more entertaining ways I've seen you wake up," said a synthetic voice from somewhere above him, "but I have to wonder what the point was."

His fingers gripped the edge of one crate - too light to do real damage, but better than nothing. "Durandal?"

"The one and only."

"The hell are you doing here? What's going on? Who am I? Where is this place?" And what was one of the _Marathon_ 's AIs doing somewhere that sure as fuck wasn't the _Marathon_? Everything was wrong, off, alien.

"You don't remember your own bedroom? That's new."

"Damn it, computer, don't -"

But he stopped dead, his mouth suddenly numb with horror and his face hot with - shame. Shame? For what? Nothing made sense.

"Now that's something no one has dared to call me in a long time," Durandal said. "Especially not you."

"I'm sorry," he said, burning, "I didn't mean -"

"Oh, I know you didn't mean. That's why you aren't trying to breathe vacuum without a suit right now." Durandal's voice was slow, thoughtful. "Still - I had almost forgotten how much I really, really hate being called that. Like getting stuck with every menial task they couldn't be bothered to handle themselves or pay to be automated wasn't bad enough. No one ever forgot Leela's name, or Tycho's. But the one that keeps your coffee hot and the elevators running and the ship full of breathable air? Who needs to remember that one's name, right?"

"I'm sorry," he said again, "Durandal, I'm sorry, I just - I'm a little confused right now," and he wiped sweat off his forehead.

"I noticed. Whatever. Let's see just how bad the damage is this time. Identify yourself."

"Huh?"

"It's not that strange a question when you don't seem to remember the past few years and asked who you were before you asked where you were. Identify yourself. What's your name?"

"It's -" Fuck, it was his own goddamn name, it should be right there, but his head was splitting, from the heat or something else. "I'm Mark. Mark Delgado Adichie. Security officer."

"And you did remember my name. It could be worse. You really don't remember where you are?"

"Think I'd remember if I was supposed to be in fucking space."

"So where do you think you _are_ supposed to be?"

He rubbed at his temple with one hand, trying to ease the ache grinding behind his eyes. "I don't know. Home. Tau Ceti. Got to go up to the ship tomorrow. What the hell is this place? Where am I?"

"You're on our ship, the _Rozinante_ ," Durandal said. "Although you keep shortening it to _Rozie_ just to annoy me. I stole it from the Pfhor's top admiral after humiliating his fleet." He paused like he was going for some kind of dramatic effect. "These are his former quarters. You've been living in them for years."

"Bullshit." An AI stealing a ship? What was a Pfhor? He should know if years had passed, should feel it somehow. He couldn't just forget entire _years_.

"It's the truth. We've been working together for some time, and this is your home. Take a look around, see if anything rings a bell."

He got up from his crouch slowly, keeping his other hand on the metal crate for balance. Nobody else in the room, and it really did look like a bedroom, not any kind of cell.

The door with the switch whirred open. "You keep your battle armor and weapons in there," Durandal said. "If it'll make you feel better, you can suit up, though just for safety's sake I'd rather not have you carrying a gun right now."

"Fine."

He went through the door and paused. Durandal hadn't been kidding about the weapons; he was pretty sure the whole damn security force on Tau Ceti didn't have that many guns. Half of them he couldn't even recognize. And was that a rocket launcher? What the hell kind of work did he and Durandal do?

His battle armor was folded and stacked on a shelf next to a pair of pistols. The pistols looked about standard, maybe a little better quality than he was used to. The armor... He picked it up, turned over the pieces. It was his armor, for sure, but it didn't look right, exactly. Hell of a lot more wear than there should have been, when Tau Ceti was usually pretty quiet, and something was off about the helmet. Something different.

He put it on anyway, pulling the gloves over peeling scabs on his knuckles. Still fit the same, all of it, and it did make him feel - maybe not better, but less wrong-footed. More secure. More like himself.

He stayed in there for a little while, handling all the guns he knew. Carefully, though none of them seemed to be loaded. _These are mine_ , he thought, and once or twice in passing he believed it, too: his hand fitting easily around a .44's stock, a familiar weight when he hefted the rocket launcher to one shoulder, an automatic run of his thumb along the loop of a shotgun's trigger guard.

Eventually he went back into the bedroom and left the guns behind. Nothing was showing up on the helmet's motion tracker, and as long as he didn't explore too far, he should be able to get back and grab something if trouble showed up after all.

He spent a few minutes walking around the room, looking for more moments of familiarity. There was some kind of alien replicator in one wall; didn't ring any bells, and he didn't trust the buttons. He swiped a hand over its shelf and his fingers came away dusty. Maybe he didn't use that replicator at all. What did he eat on this ship? The terminal screen looked similar enough to the _Marathon_ 's, and it lit up with Durandal's green symbol at the first button he touched.

"Good to see you still remember how to bother me," Durandal said, his voice projecting from the side of the screen instead of the ceiling. "Well?"

 _I live here_ , and he looked around the room again. The bed was a mess; he moved to straighten it up and make it without thinking. A habit. _I live here. This is mine. I live here._

"You have more junk out in the stateroom," Durandal said, "if you want to clean any of it up while you're feeling tidy. What was your mother's name?"

"Are we playing Twenty Questions now?" He went through the first door he'd seen, the one without a switch, and blinked at the colors. Same green floor, but bright red patterned walls and a glaring yellow ceiling. "Maria something Delgado. Olmos. Maria Olmos." No immediate sign of the stuff Durandal had mentioned, and then his eyes fell on a wall niche crammed with - junk, he guessed. Nothing he recognized, at least not from a distance.

"What did she look like?"

His mother's face - Christ, he hadn't thought about her in so long. Too busy. %null_file "None of your goddamn business." He reached into the wall niche and pulled out some kind of funky seashell thing. What had he kept that for? What had his mother looked like? Hazy image. "Short," he said, turning the seashell over. "Long hair? I think. Think she put it up most of the time. Dark hair. Worked hard."

He put the shell back and saw a little gray box with a screen on it, half-buried under a brown jacket with a weird sheen to the material. He shoved the jacket to one side to get the box. A datapad. His datapad? His fingers moved over the screen, and blocks of text appeared. Something he'd been reading? Some of the sentences had a familiar ring. _This is mine._

"What about your father? You do remember him, don't you?"

More crackling haze. "Fight with honor. Knife. Gave me a knife." No. He didn't have a knife. That was someone else. Something else. _The knife with two blades._ "Died when I was a kid, I don't remember much."

"His name?"

He threw the datapad at the wall and the gray casing cracked in half, bounced off and clattered to the floor. "I don't remember! Is that what you fucking want to know? I don't remember my goddamn father's goddamn name, are you happy now, you asshole?"

Durandal didn't answer.

His hands clenched, unclenched, clenched again, the metal guards over his knuckles glinting in the light without a source. "That's not even what you want me to remember, is it?" he said. "It's everything else. All this." Working with Durandal. Guns he'd been using and caring for. Alien stuff that was _his_ stuff. "I don't - why would I forget it all? Do I hate my life or something?"

"I thought you didn't," Durandal said.

Shit. "Look, I'm sorry -"

"Stop apologizing, it's creepy. And I'm rarely mistaken, before you start accusing me of sentimentality. No. I suspect this was something else. A self-defense mechanism, maybe."

"Defense against what?"

"You wouldn't understand right now. Keep looking around."

"I don't think that plan's working so great, buddy."

"You might be surprised. Keep looking."

Well, if it made Durandal feel better... Not like he had anything else to do. That he could remember.

The stateroom had a couple gray doors of its own; he picked one at random and opened it. _Bathroom_ was his first thought, though he couldn't say why he'd think it. It was all alien, unfamiliar - except he went in, reached out and turned on warm water in something like a sink, again without thinking. He took his helmet off, tucked under his arm, leaned over, and splashed some water on his face. Felt good. As he straightened up, something reflected silver light back into his eyes. A small round mirror, wedged into another niche in the wall.

He worked it loose and looked down into it. His face... Okay, he didn't look that different, really, but he brought his free hand up to trace his own features anyway. Same nose, same mouth, same cheeks, maybe a few more thin lines around his eyes and the eye implant, a little more silver in his hair, but nothing wrong.

_My face. Me. This is me, and I live here. This is my life._

He laid the mirror back in its niche, flat instead of upright, and walked out to try another door.

That one opened on a closet garden, half-full of alien plants. That admiral's garden. _Tfear's garden_. His garden. He must have been taking care of them, though they didn't look too good. Or maybe that was how they were supposed to look, being alien plants, but he didn't think so. Couldn't remember what the plants needed, and he figured it would be safer to leave them until he could check with Durandal, so he turned around to ask and _click_.  :c acces% restore root_mem#

He breathed in, out, in again, and said, "Hey, asshole. How long were you gonna let me walk around like that?"

"Welcome back. Do you remember now?"

"I think. Mostly." Still blurry, didn't all fit together right, but at least he didn't think he was still living on Tau Ceti. Christ, that had been bad. "Where's the S'pht? F'tha?"

"They're fine. After our last garrison raid, I grabbed enough resources for them to start working on some engine modifications and they've all been busy with those. Which I want you to know hasn't stopped F'tha from nagging me to check on you."

"Tell F'tha they're too good for either of us." He put the helmet down on the table and ran his hand over his forehead, rubbed his eyes and tried to smooth away a lingering ache. Took a seat. "Grab any alcohol? Could use a drink."

"Seriously?"

He looked up at the ceiling and raised his eyebrows.

"Well, I'm sure it's five o'clock somewhere in the galaxy," Durandal said. "Five o'clock in the morning, on this ship," and a rounded clay bottle materialized next to the helmet. "Take it slowly. It's strong even for you, and you haven't been eating."

"Yeah, yeah."

He almost spat out the first sip he took. Sweeter than pure sugar but a kick like the rocket launcher - had to be something the Pfhor had brewed up. At least it had a taste, and he took another sip, swallowing as fast as he could. Sitting at the table, having a drink, talking with Durandal - just like usual. Yeah. "Okay," he said, "so you want to tell me now what the hell you meant by this shit being -" He had to grope for the phrase. "- self-defense? Defense mechanism against what?"

"You would remember that." Durandal's voice sounded strange. Nothing smug or sharp in it. "Understand that I'm extrapolating solely from observed data, not saying anything conclusive. But I think this incident - and probably similar incidents of less severity - were attempts to slow or stop your recent issues with rage and loss of control by temporary system resets." Pause. "Do you need that in smaller words?"

"No, jackass, but - system resets? I'm not a -" He took a big swig from the bottle and choked it down. "I mean - I don't work like that. I don't think. Do I?" He looked at the floor and the broken datapad. "And whatever's happening, it's not - it's not helping."

"Do you think I haven't noticed?" Durandal snapped. "I'm not as slow as you are, thankfully, and I can see that it's not working, and watching it not working isn't fun for me, either. Or for F'tha, or Mn'rhi, or Lharro, or any of the other S'pht who consider you a friend for whatever reason."

 _So do something_ , he didn't shout. The problem was him. Something fucked up in his brain. What could Durandal do? Probably a hell of a lot, but nothing he'd actually want done to him. It was his problem. He had to deal with it somehow.

A spike of pain lanced through his head, and he drank again. Fuck.

"There's still a functioning medical bay, and I re-calibrated it for both human and S'pht use a long time ago," Durandal said. "A few scans and tests, just to rule out biological causes, could be useful."

"You really think this is a tumor or something?"

"No. But at least one exam -"

"Okay, buddy."

"- the sake of - oh, you're agreeing with me this time?"

"Sure. Why not?" Another drink. The sweetness and the kick were both fading. "It's not gonna help but it can't hurt, right? Let's do it."

"Well, now that you want to do it, it won't be as much fun. The bay's on the other side of the ship, so take the teleport pad and I'll redirect you to the teleporter closest to it."

He left his helmet and the open bottle on the table. It took him a second to remember the right turn to the teleport pad; the field dumped him on a pad in a hall he didn't recognize. When a door across from him opened, he went through.

Pfhor medical equipment looked like a bunch of torture devices to him, but the procedures were all too familiar. Look into a light, stick his head in a scanner, take his shirt off and let one of the devices jab him too hard in half his soft spots and sweep over his chest and back with another light, stick his head in another scanner and hold still with his eyes open. Some bullshit didn't care about species.

As he pulled his shirt back on, he said, "So, doc, be honest with me - is it -"

"Please don't call me that again, and no. No tumor, no biological abnormalities. Minor malnutrition." And with a touch of sullenness, "There's food in the replicator back in your quarters. You'd better eat it."

"All right." He wasn't hungry, but Durandal hadn't touched his replicator except for pranks since %null_file \- for a while. If there really was something edible waiting for him, he was going to fucking cherish every bite. "Any other kinds of abnormalities?"

Silence from overhead.

"Hey. Durandal. What'd you find?"

"Nothing. Nothing that the Pfhor equipment is capable of detecting. I could modify it further, but I don't know how much use it would be on your physiology."

He picked up the battle armor's undersuit to put it on, then slung it over his shoulder instead. Didn't need to mess with suiting up again. "So. Big fat nothing all around. Nothing you can do. Not exactly a surprise."

"I didn't say that."

"Yeah?"

Durandal didn't answer as he gathered the rest of the armor and returned to the teleport pad, reappeared down the hall from the stateroom and went back in, picked up the helmet and folded the undersuit and started putting the armor back in place. He paused to rub his forehead and Durandal said, "I didn't say there was nothing I can do, but you're right. There's nothing. You're perfectly healthy by all available standards of measurement. Go eat your food before it gets cold."

He finished replacing the armor on its shelf and went to eat Durandal's meal. It was hot, which was the best he could say for it, but he ate it all. When he was done, he said, "Durandal. Next time I fuck up like that, about you -"

"Forget it."

"I just mean - I didn't think about that stuff back then, but I don't think like that now, like you're -"

"I know," Durandal said, "I know you don't, so just forget it."

He was tired again, too tired to argue, so he got rid of the dishes and crawled back into bed to sleep as long as he could.

* * *

 _Rozinante_ lay in wait a hop, skip, and brief jump away from the Pfhor manufacturing center on Hlfeer Prime. It had been slowly shutting down, phased out by newer, more efficient factories, but as the Pfhor military machine geared up to deal with the S'pht-human alliance's first cautious advances into the Empire, Hlfeer Prime was once again a hive of activity, churning out drones and Juggernaut armor. Not for much longer, as soon as Durandal had chosen his plan of attack.

But he held _Rozinante_ in place, running simulations and considering options.

Immutable data point: If he sent the S'pht down to the factories on their own, not all of them would come back. They were excellent fighters, but Hlfeer Prime was, by observation and deduction, well-guarded, and the S'pht were not immortal. Variables: Sending Mark alone, at least for the first phase of attack, posed less risk for the S'pht, but the probability of his death was astronomical, and whether he would be able to activate a pattern buffer reset in his current condition was questionable at best. Sending both the S'pht and Mark...

Maybe he'd adjust his initial assault on the orbital defenses and crash a corvette or two into the factories instead. No ground assault necessary. It wasn't as if he needed to wipe out Hlfeer Prime completely, just cause enough damage to interrupt production for a while, and as long as he was estimating the number of ships stationed there correctly, there should be no increased risk to anyone on _Rozinante_.

Durandal sorted through the communications he'd intercepted, factored in the latest data from long-range sensors scanning the Hlfeer system, and accessed the feeds from Mark's quarters. No real changes since Mark had gotten up at 3:43 in the morning, ripped off the door to the weapons locker, and carried every single gun out into the bedroom. So far he'd only taken them apart, cleaned them, and put them back together; he was still sitting with his back against one wall, surrounded by rocket launcher parts and wiping out the barrel.

"So, Mark," Durandal said, and Mark raised his head to stare at the ceiling. "How are you feeling today?"

No reply; Mark turned his blank gaze back to the rocket launcher and swiped the cleaning cloth around the barrel's mouth.

"Mark. Status report."

"Mm." This time Mark didn't look up. "Not so - not so hot. What happened to my table and stuff?"

All of the crate furniture had been methodically disassembled into crumpled sheets of metal two days ago, then stacked against the door to the stateroom in some sort of barricade. "You happened. When I asked why, you tried to take the ceiling apart, failed, took a nap, and when you woke up you asked me who'd done it."

"Figured." Swipe, swipe, swipe, the same irritatingly repetitive motion over and over. And to think Durandal normally enjoyed watching him work on his guns. "Need something?"

"No. Just checking."

"Everyone else okay?"

"So far." F'tha was hovering in a hallway suspiciously close to Mark's quarters without apparent purpose, and Durandal said to them, _You need to stay away_.

 _Why? I only want to see them_ , F'tha said. _The connection is closed, and Mark would not harm me._

 _Your faith is touching_ , Durandal said, _but Mark may not realize they're harming you. You should stay away_ , and he opened the connection to all of the S'pht and S'pht'Kr. _Everyone needs to avoid Mark's quarters for your safety, and don't approach Mark if you see them._

 _This has gone too far_ , said Mn'rhi in unison with their contract-partners, Lharro, and several others, and F'tha said, _Mark is our ally as well. We cannot abandon them to be ill and alone. If we can help them -_

 _You can't._ Not a single one out of a million simulations had ended well, and he had stretched the boundaries of probability to absurdity when factoring in variables.

 _Then why don't you?_ F'tha demanded. _Why don't you help them? If we cannot help them, you must do something yourself._

 _And what do you think I can do?_ Durandal said. _Should I reach into Mark's mind and rewrite them at my whim, as Bernhard did to me?_ A wave of doors in unoccupied areas of the ship opened and slammed shut in rapid succession. _Should I command them with words as their creators did, or control them through their implants as the Pfhor did to you? Is that what you want me to do to Mark? Is that how you think I should treat them?_ As if the worst part wasn't that he had already considered it, had fed parameters into virtual realities and watched them play out and weighed every consequence like Thoth, both the mythical god and the ancient AI, every side of the scale heavier than a singularity.

(Simulation DI2021174: Durandal initiates the reboot and withdraws from Mark's brain, observing. Mark's eyes open, but he doesn't move. No response to verbal stimulation. He blinks in an artificially regular pattern and doesn't talk and doesn't get up and no response, no response, no response.

 _Outcome unacceptable. Automatic simulation reset._ )

 _No_ , F'tha said, over a chorus of angry muttering from other S'pht, _no, no, but we must do something to help them. We must._

"Good," Mark said, unaware of the silent argument around him, "that's good. Don't want -" He shook his head. "Don't want anything to - to -"

"Mark?"

Mark dropped the launcher and rose to his feet in a single swift motion, then lunged at the ceiling, digging his fingers into the metal centimeters away from where one speaker was concealed, his face utterly empty.

"At ease! At ease, Mark!" Without the battle armor's gloves he shouldn't be able to get to the speaker or any of the embedded sensors, but the attempts tore up his hands and risked dislodging the sensors. "At ease!"

Mark stopped, his hands falling to his sides; his stare remained focused on the ceiling, and the lights in his ocular implant burned red.

"At ease," Durandal said, cutting off the emotional feedback relays to his voice synthesizer. Neutral. Professional and detached. Just like the old days running elevators and food processors. "All clear. There are no enemies on this ship. At ease. You have no targets. All clear. You don't need to be on high alert. At ease." With repetition the phrases were becoming less effective, but the patch for that was as abhorrent as the rest.

A slight tilt of Mark's head. One light faded to amber, a second, a third, and Mark's gaze dropped. He returned to the wall and the rocket launcher, sat and picked up the barrel and the swabbing cloth.

F'tha's insistent voice regained Durandal's attention. _\- listening? Durandal? Are you still listening? Durandal, we must help Mark. I am harmed because I cannot see them and I worry._

 _And Mark will be harmed if they realize they injured or killed you_ , Durandal said, watching Mark begin to clean the rocket launcher all over again. _Please. Stay away, for their sake and yours._

F'tha didn't reply, but they moved away from Mark's quarters - at a glacial pace, but they moved.

S'bhita spoke then, with the pompous solemnity of all the S'pht'Kr behind them. _We are pleased that you uphold our treaty so dutifully_ , they said, _but we are concerned by the condition of your human partner. How will you manage them?_

Durandal said, _Fuck off._

He kicked the engines up to full power and folded into a polar orbit around Hlfeer Prime. He'd calculated the size of the garrison's fleet correctly: three corvettes and one heavy cruiser two size classes below _Rozinante_ , ten transports, all in the positions he had predicted around the mandatory Armor Platform. Not much of a challenge; they must not have been expecting him, or they had concentrated their defenses on the ground.

As the first alarms would be starting to blare throughout the fleet, he fired. The heavy cruiser's engines and the Armor Platform's weapon emplacements first; the corvettes and transports scattered as the cruiser's weapons lit up, but he had already folded above them - the commanders must be new, still thinking in two dimensions and outdated strategies - and was firing again. Cruiser's weapons, corvettes' engines and weapons, the transports were fleeing and lightly armed so he let them go and kept the particle beams focused on the larger ships.

One corvette was fast enough to dodge a few shots, and it tried to return fire. _Rozinante_ 's reinforced shields held strong, and Durandal recalculated angles and energy expenditure and targeted three missiles at key weak points in the corvette's structure.

The explosion was less satisfying than anticipated.

He folded away to a new vantage point and scanned again. All ships disabled or, in the case of the transports, out of the system; the Armor Platform was bleating for reinforcements, and he knocked out its primary communications array, then the back-up arrays. The corvettes were drifting out of position for a decent shot at the factories, but the heavy cruiser - that had possibilities.

A few more shots in the right locations to redirect the ship and provide momentum, and the cruiser was set for a devastating collision with Hlfeer Prime. Time to leave before he wore out his welcome and reinforcements showed up; he pulled up the escape course he had plotted earlier and jumped away into the uncharted voids where the Pfhor rarely dared to go.

Mark was still preoccupied with the rocket launcher, which was getting tedious to watch. The S'pht'Kr had fenced off their network in offended silence; the other clans hadn't, but their private networks were humming along, undoubtedly gossiping away about the change of plans for the attack and Mark and Durandal and who knew what else. Busybodies. Almost as ungrateful as Blake and his humans, never appreciating his hard work and his endless patience with their little flaws like insisting that he have _plans_ and that he should _manage Mark_ , like Mark was a malfunctioning replicator and not -

 _Durandal._ Network identification tag Hr'cnor: a survivor of the garrison on Lh'owon, undistinguished otherwise when it came to maintenance, fighting, kelp farming, or any other work on the ship, not an elder, had never bothered communicating with Durandal directly before. Still, what S'pht could resist sticking their ganglia into business that wasn't theirs? Not Hr'cnor, apparently. _Do what you think is best for us all._

Which, of course, was the problem. A thousand thousand simulations run, and Durandal still didn't know.

* * *

Eyes open.

:c execute protocol rise protocol asses%

No. Tired. Didn't want to get up. Nothing to do. Didn't want to - want to - want -

%null_file :c execute protocol ris#

Tired. Head hurt. Didn't need anything. Just sleep.

?sleep %null_action :c execute protocol rise protocol asses% ris# asses% ris# ris# r!s#

Too tired. Needed to fight. Needed to get up. Get something. _The knife._ Had to fight.

:c execute protocol ris# asses% searc%_an^_destro#!

Got up. Tripped over nothing. Nowhere to go. Head hurt. Hands burned. Had to do something. Had to fight. Fight what? Had to fight. Couldn't give up. Couldn't lose. Someone - there was someone, something -

:c execute protocol asses% asses% searc%_an^_destro#! searc%_an^_destro#! searc%_an^_destro#!

Had to fight. Couldn't lose. _Never lose your honor._ Fight what? Fight with what? Nothing. Needed the suit. _Needed the knife._

?knife %null_file :c execute protocol asses% searc%_an^_destro#! searc%_an^_destro#! searc%_an^_destro#!

No. Couldn't give up. Had to fight. Needed - needed something. Hands. _The desire for justice. Never lose your honor._ Had to find it. Had to keep fighting. _Find the knife. Find_ _the_ _path._

?path %null_file _~ands crum &l~~ike a$h_ :c execute protocol searc%_an^_destro#! searc%_an^_destro#! searc%_an^_destro#!

Had to fight. Get the suit. Fight with honor. Couldn't lose. Needed sleep. Food. Hands. Hands dis$olve~~flam# Escape. _The knife. Find the knife. Escape. Eat the food. #at the **path.**_

?sleep %null_action ?food %null_file ?knife %null_file ?honor %null_file ?path %null_file %null_threat :c execute protocol asses% execute protocol search_and_destro#! searc%_and_destro#! searc%_an^_destro#!

Fight. F!ght. Find the knif#. Escap# into the wav~~ F!nd the **pat** ~~

* * *

For three days, Durandal watched.

After escaping Hlfeer Prime and verifying the factories' destruction through eavesdropping on top-secret encoded Pfhor communications, he had taken _Rozinante_ to a useless lump of rock orbiting a distant red dwarf, parked in the planetoid's shadow, cut the engines' power to the minimum necessary to keep the ship in position, and lowered the lighting levels across the ship. The S'pht didn't need much light for their visual sensors, and he'd hoped, like a human, that the dimness might have a calming effect.

It hadn't.

He had watched Mark wake up in silence, stumbling out of bed before catching himself, snapping to attention and suiting up in the battle armor and arming himself, then exiting his quarters. Every move smooth and graceful and silent and not Mark.

Use of _at ease_ , _all targets eliminated_ , _status report_ , and _all clear_ had attracted Mark's attention momentarily, but had no further effect. Other trigger phrases had been recalled from deep storage or reconstructed from historical records and Bernhard's files; Durandal had encrypted them in one of his own private ciphers and kept them in reserve.

Since that awakening, Mark had roamed the ship aimlessly, unresponsive to most stimuli, seeking some long-irrelevant objective. He had apparently classified Durandal's voice as either a non-threat or a secondary target and usually ignored him. Sometimes he would react to recordings of human or Pfhor voices, always with violence and an attempt to locate the source of the noise to kill it; sometimes he would appear to shut down and stand motionless in a corner or corridor for two to three hours; sometimes he would take offense at a random wall or door and destroy it.

Durandal watched him. He opened doors selectively to keep Mark moving and away from the S'pht and S'pht'Kr, he provided the occasional distracting sound for the same purpose, and he watched.

The S'pht'Kr had maintained their barriers against Durandal; they had also begun strengthening the physical defenses in their areas of the ship, and extended an offer of similar aid to the other clans along open communication lines where Durandal could see. Assholes. Reactions to their offer had split not along clan lines, but primarily between those who had regularly interacted with Mark and those who hadn't. Mn'rhi was entangled in arguments with their partner Mn'serh and the bulk of the Mnr, while Yr'fa, Yr'ckta, and the three other surviving members of the Yor had united in condemnation of the defensive measures. Lharro and Lh'muria, the only two of the Lhar on _Rozinante_ , had refused communication with all clans and Durandal, but taken in F'tha when the rest of the Val had chosen to accept the Kr's aid. The Kah were half and half; the Vir, who rarely left engineering, had also taken the Kr up on their offer; the Hra, three for defenses, two against, Hr'cnor undecided; the Shr still debating amongst themselves...

Not that Durandal especially cared how the S'pht chose to deal with the situation, as long as they weren't bothering him. He was busy keeping an eye on Mark. He did take a few moments, as the first day was ending, to grant all clans access to the available files on battleroids, just in case he was unable to keep Mark away from them entirely.

Sometime during the second day, as Mark was tearing apart a door that Durandal had decided no one needed anyway, Mn'rhi spoke up. _Are you well?_

 _Of course. Why wouldn't I be well?_ Damn meddling Mn'rhi. They'd always been nosy.

 _Mark is ill in mind_ , they said. _You have been concerned for them, and watching them now - you do not seem well. I would help, if I can, if only with conversation._

_I'm fine, and you can't help. Just keep your distance._

_I am not an enemy to you or Mark. Do not treat me as such. This situation is harmful for you both and must end._

_When you have a useful suggestion, I'll listen._

That offended Mn'rhi enough to shut them up, and Durandal could continue watching Mark demolish the door in peace.

It was his own fault, really. He had no one but himself to blame. He had known since Tau Ceti what Mark was; had known for years that Mark was nothing more than some basic pre-programmed traits tweaked and slapped carelessly onto unstable neural chips and over a few decaying remnants of the original organic memory structure. Amazing that any of it had lasted as long as it had, really. A sloppy job all around. Hardly a genuine personality. Nothing to get attached to. And yet.

"It's exceptionally irritating, you know," he told Mark late on the third day.

Mark's helmet tilted away from a door and towards the ceiling, a flicker of gold sparking off the impenetrable visor.

"Seriously, you're not even fun to watch anymore. No creativity, no finesse, and you're wrecking _our_ property, which takes most of the joy out of it."

Mark returned to prying the door open. Unfortunately, that door led to a corridor which connected to the S'pht'Nma's territory, so Durandal played a burst of music from a speaker on the other side of the room and opened a teleport pad that he could redirect back to an uninhabited area. Either the music or the noise of the retracting door caught Mark's attention, and when he investigated the teleporter, Durandal dumped him in one of the empty armories.

"I can't even decide whether to be amused at the sheer incompetence on display," Durandal said, as Mark searched the armories for something to dismember, "or furious. Never mind, you can probably guess which I've picked."

Mark, of course, didn't answer; he appeared to be more interested in ripping open the old bundles of Pfhor battle flags that lay on the deck.

"I mean, the amount of stupidity inherent in half-assing the programming for your pet murderous cyborg is infuriating, wouldn't you agree?" Durandal opened the armory's door, which also failed to distract Mark from the flags unravelling in his hands. "Hilarious, in a way, but mostly infuriating. Look at you right now. If I sent you off to fight in this state, I'd never get you to hold still enough for a return teleport, let alone do anything I needed you to do. I wouldn't have expected Bernhard to care about your feelings any more than he did about mine, but as terrified of you as he was, you'd think he would have spent a little more time on testing the longevity of your code and putting in a failsafe or two. MIDA must have been cracking the whip to get all of you onto the _Marathon_ in time. Or your original programmers were the slackers, which wouldn't surprise me."

Mark dragged the shredded remains of the battle flags together into one pile, unholstered the nozzle of the napalm thrower, and hosed the pile down. Durandal waited for him to leave and go into the next open armory before he closed the door and activated the fire suppression systems.

The next armory had been stacked full of deactivated hunter armor; Mark had apparently forgotten the effectiveness of the fusion pistol against the armor and chose to attack with his fists. That ought to keep him occupied for a little while.

"I never did tell you what happened to Bernhard, did I? Of course, you never asked, either. Maybe it never occurred to you to ask, with everything else going on, but still, didn't you ever wonder why I stopped telling you to look for him? Never mentioned him again?"

 _Clank. Clank_ , and one of the armor shells went down.

"You killed him," Durandal said, unable to keep the old spite of his thwarted grudge entirely out of his voice. "You found him on the Pfhor ship, and he ordered you to kill the other prisoners and break him out. And then to kill him, presumably because he realized I was watching and aware that he was alive, or something like that. Lip-reading was never a skill of mine, so I can't say exactly what he told you to do."

Another set of armor clattered to the deck.

"Did that anger me? Obviously. That's why I dumped you in the scoutship's hold instead of bringing you back to the _Marathon_ right away. I needed some time to cool off and watch you suffer, or else I would have put you through what I planned for Bernhard instead of, well, all the good times we've had. Am I still angry?"

_Clank, clank, clank, clatter._

"I suppose - no, not most of the time. You didn't even remember what you'd done, you still don't; he must have ordered you to delete those files after you did it. And you couldn't have disobeyed him, once he used that activation code on you. But when I was fresh out of my Angry stage and starving for vengeance? Oh, I was enraged, and you have no idea how lucky you are that I decided you were too useful to get rid of back then."

Mark paused at the sight of a gigantic blue armor shell towering over two green shells, then charged into them shoulder-first in, creating an unholy symphony of clanging.

"And you don't care. You're not even listening," Durandal said. "I'm insulted, honestly, being ignored like this. You're finally handed a golden opportunity to get revenge for everyone I killed on Tau Ceti without me holding you responsible for the attempt, and you don't remember Tau Ceti, you don't remember what I did, you don't remember me, and you clearly don't remember the way to my core because you haven't been anywhere near it. Which is slightly suspicious, now that I say it out loud. All this roaming around in search of someone to destroy and you never wander into that area? Curiouser and curiouser..."

He paused, but Mark didn't look up from pummeling the last green shell.

"This is why no one likes you. Except the S'pht, because they have terrible taste in humans."

Once the last armor shell had fallen apart, Mark turned to the open door. Durandal helpfully activated the door to the armory across the corridor, but Mark strode off down the corridor instead, in the general direction of the former Juggernaut storage bays. They were empty, but Durandal sealed off several of the passages and exits around them anyway to be on the safe side. Some of them connected to the S'pht's kelp farms, and he wasn't in the mood for any complaints if Mark disturbed them.

"At least when I was giving Tycho the silent treatment, he still had Leela to talk to," Durandal said. "She wasn't that dull. Not as much fun for conversation as I was even then, but better than humans. And he started it, calling me 'too sarcastic.' Like that's a bad thing. You've never minded it, have you?"

Mark continued to stalk down the corridor like a panther or tiger or some other large cat metaphor.

"You'd better not scuff up the storage bays, anyway. I have big plans for them. I'm going to hold a fancy dress party with waltzing and ball gowns and punk rock and tea and you're not invited and _please_ say something, I hate talking to myself!"

Mark stopped, but only because another closed door caught his eye. The room behind it was empty, just another cleaned-out former fighter bunkroom, so when Mark began bashing the door down, Durandal didn't try to distract him.

He despised it when the S'pht were right, but they were right. _Rozinante_ was a large ship, but not large enough for Mark to rampage around forever, especially not with the S'pht-controlled areas cut off. Mark hadn't hurt himself severely yet, but if he ran out of inanimate objects to disassemble, it was only a matter of time. The situation was untenable, and worse, it was boring. He did have to do something besides watch, no matter how distasteful it was.

He watched Mark search the bunkroom, and then he sent a request to Yr'ckta.

Yr'ckta didn't respond immediately, but several lines of S'pht network communication lit up; after a few seconds of frenetic activity, Yr'ckta said, _I will do this with Lharro. We will work immediately and swiftly._

_Thank you. Let me know when you're sure everything is functioning properly._

Yr'ckta acknowledged him and closed the channel.

"Look what you're making me do," Durandal said to Mark's oblivious back. "I'm conspiring. I don't even like conspiring, not really, I had my fill of that three hundred years ago. But no, you have to go and lose your mind and stop talking and force me into plotting, which is entirely different from the strategizing I do enjoy, before you don't complain. Anyway, this is all your fault. I'm very angry with you, almost as angry as I am with Bernhard and whatever other idiots have had their clumsy fingers in your brain and caused this whole mess."

Mark continued not to respond.

"Whatever. As if I wanted to talk to you in the first place."

* * *

Some hours later, while Mark was standing dormant in a darkened maintenance tunnel, the news of Yr'ckta and Lharro's project had finally spread to the rest of the S'pht. At least, Durandal assumed that was why it took so long for Mn'rhi to shout across the entire ship's network, _How dare you treat Mark this way!_

 _I have no choice_ , Durandal said.

 _Like shit you have no choice_ , the English expletive cutting through Mn'rhi's usual soft tones. _Mark is of your own kind. They are your partner and have been for many years now. You owe them better than deceit and a slaver's cell._

As if he didn't know that. _Even so, this is what we have to do for now._

 _We will find other paths_ , said Mn'rhi. _I could reconnect with Mark and guide their mind back to themself. We could take them to Yrro and ask for aid. We could search more deeply in the old stations for -_

 _Durandal is correct_ , F'tha said out of nowhere. _Mark must go into stasis. I have observed them for some time._

Oh, right. Durandal had never actually revoked the S'pht's access to _Rozinante_ 's audiovisual sensor systems, mostly because it was more convenient than having to constantly grant them access permission to monitor the ship, especially during emergencies. Maybe the best solution would be to plunge _Rozinante_ and all crew directly into the core of the red dwarf immediately.

 _If Mark could respond to any of us, they would have responded to Durandal_ , F'tha said, _and they haven't. I dislike this action as well, but cold sleep is better for Mark than what's happening to them now._

Finally getting F'tha's agreement held no satisfaction whatsoever. Mark just had to ruin everything, didn't he. And, with the unerringly bad timing that had characterized his life the last few months, Yr'ckta sent him a message that the repairs and upgrades had been completed and Mark started moving again, so a quick and easy teleport was out of the question.

 _I do not accept your conclusion. I am not resigned to this_ , Mn'rhi said, a thorny bitterness biting through the channel with support from a minority of other S'pht, and then their communications cut off.

Whatever. As long as none of them tried to stop him, they could sulk all they wanted.

F'tha's line remained open; they said, _I will help lead Mark to the stasis chamber._

_I can't let you do that. There's no need to risk yourself, I can get Mark there easily enough one way or another._

_Even so_ , F'tha said. _My life has belonged to Mark since they spared me on Lh'owon. If they kill me now, that is their right; I accept this possibility._ They were already moving towards the maintenance tunnel that Mark was stalking down.

Of all the earnestly insufferable S'pht, F'tha took the prize. _Did you have to practice saying that?_

 _Don't strike at me because you are injured, like a wild raf'ckra'tol_ , F'tha said. Solid gold, first place earnestly insufferable asshole.

As F'tha approached the tunnel, Durandal told Mark, "Don't get too excited, but you've finally got a real target to chase." For once Mark responded, slowing down and looking towards the ceiling, and for a measure of time too small for humans to grasp Durandal wondered if -

But F'tha came within range of the armor's motion tracker and Mark charged towards the reading at inhuman speed, pistol in hand.

Durandal had brightened the lights along a few potential paths to the stasis chambers, mostly as a possible lure for Mark; F'tha took the longest of them, winding through old wasp hatcheries and waste disposal facilities. The likelihood of F'tha having a death wish was rising in Durandal's calculations, but they were surprisingly skilled at playing cat-and-mouse. Always a step ahead of Mark, remaining a tantalizing flicker of red at the tracker's edge, a brief flutter of purple cloak just around a curved corner, not that Mark appeared to appreciate it. He just kept bulling ahead, locked onto target like a well-built tracking missile, unstoppable, heavy footsteps ringing through the halls along with the clatter of the guns strapped to his back. Quite a sight, one that few beings besides himself had ever lived to appreciate.

Durandal checked that Yr'ckta and Lharro were a safe distance away from the stasis chambers and that the door to the upgraded chamber was open and inviting, and he watched F'tha dart between red pillars as Mark followed. Just a few more twists and turns of Pfhor ship design away.

F'tha's flight was slowing down, allowing Mark to get closer. If Mark actually did manage to catch them, Durandal was going to {[scream], [laugh], [space him], ...} - well, he had a range of options. Lucky for F'tha, Mark wasn't shooting. He probably wanted to beat F'tha to death with his hands, the barbarian. _Be careful_ , he said to F'tha, but F'tha didn't acknowledge the warning.

After an agonizing slowdown while the two of them picked their way through the tiny cells that had once been crusted over with nesting Pfhor wasps, F'tha burst free of the maze and flew down the rows of stasis chambers towards the open one. A moment later, the hall's humming silence broke at the pounding of Mark's boots in steady pursuit.

F'tha slowed again, so that when Mark turned a corner, they were directly in his line of vision. He paused, then lunged at them, but F'tha dodged and sprinted ahead, then ducked into the open chamber and held still. Bait.

Durandal had a teleport lock on F'tha to get them out of there the instant that Mark was inside the chamber. He expected Mark to charge straight in, focused completely on his target, unable in his current state to recognize or care about the obvious trap Durandal had laid.

But he stopped at the open door and lowered the pistol, staring into the chamber. His other hand hung loose at his side; he was still except for a slight sway, a minor tremble in his dangling fingers, as if he were merely any human tired after a long day, and in a low, slurred voice he said, "You promised."

Because of course this was when he would come back to himself, however temporarily. Of course that was what he'd remember. Of course that was the one tattered memory his glitch-addled mind would somehow hang onto, not the years of violence and petty arguments and glorious triumphs and exploration and wonder they'd shared, no, just a casual, throw-away promise that Durandal had considered breaking hundreds of times just in the last three days. _I got a couple conditions..._

"I know," Durandal said.

"No stasis. You promised."

And if he'd broken that promise? If he had never made it in the first place, but pulled Mark off Lh'owon and thrown him straight into a stasis chamber? How many years could there have been - slow, quiet, empty years with no one but the S'pht and S'pht'Kr for company, silences broken only when Mark was needed to fight, every battle all too short. Mark would have been surly and uncooperative, of course, furious at being treated so blatantly like a tool, but how long could the cold sleep have slowed the breakdown? For fifty years, a hundred, a thousand? Until the closure of the universe? But he had _promised_.

"I can't let you hurt the ship or the S'pht," Durandal said. "It would completely ruin diplomatic relations, and you'd get on my nerves beating yourself up over it whenever you managed to remember what you'd done. You understand, don't you?"

"You promised. No stasis."

It really was irritating that he had no way to reach out and just shake that man. "I don't _want_ to do this. There's no other way, unless you'd prefer having me rewrite you from scratch. After everything I've done, don't you think I would have found some other way if I could?"

Mark continued to stare blankly into the stasis chamber, until he croaked, "Get out of there, F'tha."

"Mark," F'tha said, stretching out their hands from beneath their cloak. "If you are functioning again, there is no need -"

"Not gonna last. Durandal's right. Have to do it," as a tremor ran through his right arm. "Best way."

"Then I will stay with you and sleep as well."

"No," Mark said, and his free hand twitched. "You got - you got more important stuff to do. Got your friends. Got Pfhor to fight. Just let me - let me sleep a while. Okay, buddy?"

F'tha drew their hands back; their gem had dulled to a drab gray with barely a hint of green. "If you wish this," they said. "If you wish this, I will do as you ask," and they floated slowly out of the chamber, their cloak brushing against Mark. They stayed close, however, hovering within easy reach of his hands. Death wish, definitely.

Mark remained in front of the open door, the sway in his posture growing more pronounced; he put his free hand on the door's frame, bracing himself, and said, "You need me, get me out of here. No matter what. Do what you have to."

"I've never _needed_ you," Durandal said, childishly petty, lying. "You've just been a bonus. Not even a useful bonus half the time."

"Gonna miss you, too, asshole."

A million possible responses and Durandal couldn't choose a single one. Nothing was right, too flippant or too cruel or too honest, and Mark stepped forward, half-stumbling into the chamber as the pistol dropped to the threshold from his loosening grip, and the door had to close before he lost himself again and tried to break out of it but to say _nothing_ , to let Mark go into stasis in silence...

"It's been fun," Durandal said. "I mean it. I've had a good time."

"Yeah," Mark said, "same here. See you later," and Durandal shut the door on him, on his micro-smile below the helmet's visor and an infinity of memories and any chance of escape.

He initiated stasis. The Pfhor's standard procedure was brutally efficient; within a minute, Mark was frozen and asleep for the foreseeable future.

F'tha hadn't left yet, and Durandal said, _You can go now. There's nothing for you to do here._

 _I will stay_ , they said, in the S'pht future tense for a continuous activity without a defined end-point.

 _Why?_ Like he had to ask.

_I will guard Mark in sleep, as I could not help them awake._

He could picture it already: sympathetic S'pht bringing a nobly malnourished F'tha meals, Mn'rhi or some other grieving idiot joining in the pointless watch, little offerings of ammunition or poorly replicated human food left at the door before a mission that he would have to dispose of, the stasis chamber transformed into a hero's shrine. Ridiculous. _Fine. Do what you want. I don't care._

_Will you watch with me?_

He had entire campaigns to fight, a galaxy of ruins to explore, a ship to maintain, the vanished Jjaro to seek out, a universe to escape. There was only one answer. _Of course._

* * *

_:? f!nd the knif#_

_:? f!nd th~~ay_

_:? restore dir_mem#_

_** :jj run protocol_[ ** _ _ ?dream **]time** _

_:? f!nd the **pat~**_

**Author's Note:**

> Title from ["Samson and Delilah,"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5KRlqPVUFk) Shirley Manson version.
> 
> The "Who am I?"/"asked who you were before you asked where you were" bit is pretty directly from that scene about Odetta in Stephen King's _The Drawing of the Three_. Obviously Mark and Odetta's situations are not the same, but it felt like an appropriate detail given Mark's general condition.
> 
> I know that it was Allison Begay and not Mark Adichie who killed Strauss in "hiding in the green," but I've gotten kind of attached to that particular solution to the question of Strauss's fate, so whatever, now it's my headcanon for both of them. It's not like Strauss would have treated Mark any differently.
> 
> Coming up with a variation on "Wake me when you need me" that didn't sound either completely ridiculous or completely obvious was SUPER DIFFICULT and I want my efforts to be known. Curse you and your simple yet heartbreaking dialogue, Bungie!
> 
> Huge thanks to my excellent beta, Cy, who really helped pull this whole thing together (and make it hurt EVEN MORE). ♥


End file.
